It will be especially our purpose to show how _school instruction_ can
be brought into the direct service of character-building. This is the
point upon which most teachers are skeptical. Not much effort has been
made of late to put the best moral materials into the school course.
In one whole set of school studies, and that the most important
(reading, literature, and history), there is opportunity through all
the grades for a vivid and direct cultivation of moral ideas and
convictions. The second great series of studies, the natural sciences,
come in to support the moral aims, while the personal example and
influence of the teacher, and the common experiences and incidents of
school life and conduct, give abundant occasion to apply and enforce
moral ideas.
That the other justifiable aims of education, such as physical
training, mental discipline, orderly habits, gentlemanly conduct,
practical utility of knowledge, liberal culture, and the free
development of individuality will not be weakened by placing the moral
aim in the forefront of educational motives, we are convinced. To some
extent these questions will be discussed in the following pages.
CHAPTER II.
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